CHAPTER V
Gutter Vestals--The Troglodytes.
"No use. We've got to get rid of that beastly Bizco. Every time I see
him hate him more and he disgusts me more."
"Why?"
"Because he's a brute. Let him go off to his old fox, Dolores. You and
I can go to the theatre every night."
"How?"
"With the claque. We don't have to pay. All we have to do is applaud
when we get the signal."
This condition seemed to Manuel so easy to fulfil that he asked his
cousin:
"But listen. How is it, then, that everybody doesn't go to the theatre
like that?"
"Because they don't all know the head of the claque as I do."
And as a matter of fact they went to the Apollo. For the first few
days all Manuel could do was think of the plays and the actresses.
Vidal, with his superior manner in all things, learned the songs right
away; Manuel secretly envied him.
Between the acts the members of the claque would adjourn to a tavern
on Barquillo Street, varying this occasionally with a visit to another
place on the Plaza, del Rey. This latter resort was the rendezvous of
the claquers that worked in Price's Circus.
Almost all the legion of applauders were youngsters; a few of them
worked in shops here and there; for the most part they were loafers
and organgrinders who wound up by becoming supernumeraries, chorus men
or ticket-speculators.
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